Sen. John McCain on Sunday maintained that President Obama, in releasing the five officials who had served in the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan in the 1990s and until 2001, had released people who were “hard core al-Qaida who were responsible for 9/11.”

The American public will soon get a look into the decision-making process that led to the Obama administration’s use of drones to target U.S. citizens suspected of conducting terrorist activities abroad.

A presumed U.S. military drone strike hit a convoy of wedding guests, local authorities say, the second incident of drones killing civilians this week. The U.S. maintains its silence over the program, while a Yemeni activist says such errors only strengthen al-Qaida in the region.

Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, in separate reports, accused the U.S. of committing likely war crimes through the drone killings of civilians in Pakistan and Yemen. Both also called for full investigations and more transparency from the U.S. on whom it kills, where and why—and to open itself to criminal investigations when those attacks violated international law.

Somalia’s Al Shabab militia, a group with ties to al-Qaida, has waged a two-day assault on the Westgate Shopping Mall in the capital of Kenya. Twitter has been used as a means of communication throughout the attack by both the terrorists and the Kenyan government.

More and more it seems that “don’t go far” is the message the U.S. government is sending Americans. The global travel alert issued Aug. 2 is a perfect example of how the State Department uses fear to keep people “safely” at home, and ignorant.

In a major national security speech this spring, President Obama said again and again that the U.S. is at war with “Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and their associated forces.” So who exactly are those associated forces? It’s a secret.

Hundreds of inmates are still free in Iraq after they escaped from two jails, including the infamous Abu Ghraib, following a series of military-style attacks that left at least 20 dead. A senior Iraqi official says that many of the 500 prisoners who escaped from Abu Ghraib were senior members of al-Qaida and had been sentenced to death.

This Thursday, Seven Stories Press will release a 10th anniversary reissue of Noam Chomsky’s book on the World Trade Center attacks titled “9-11: Was There an Alternative?” and TomDispatch has an exclusive excerpt from the new preface. (more)

Documents taken from Osama bin Laden’s Pakistan compound indicate that the head of al-Qaida was plotting an attack to mark the 10th anniversary of 9/11. The records contained names of possible operatives, but little else that was useful, according to Siobhan Gorman of The Wall Street Journal.

A detainee accused of being an al-Qaida operative committed suicide in a Guantanamo Bay prison yard, U.S. officials say. His death brings the total number of Guantanamo “suicides” to six since the U.S. began sending foreign captives there in 2002. (more)

Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh is reportedly set to sign an agreement that would bring his 33-year rule to an end, making him yet another victim of the “Arab Spring” that began in Tunisia last December and raising questions about the future of al-Qaida in the Middle Eastern country. (more)

Although a team of highly trained U.S. SEALs backed by months of careful CIA and military preparation executed Sunday’s raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound, the Pakistani military would like you to know that it was its unparalleled intelligence work that ultimately led to the takedown of the world’s most wanted terrorist.

Now that some of the mob giddiness that followed the announcement of Osama bin Laden’s death has dissipated, fear is once again thick in the air as U.S. officials warn state and local law enforcement agencies of possible retaliation attacks by a vengeful al-Qaida.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has some choice words for Taliban fighters in Afghanistan, warning of increasing military pressure as the U.S. prepares to resume heavy fighting. “They cannot defeat us,” Clinton said as the war in Central Asia is catapulted into its 10th year.